With a great deal of disappointment I have to make this post. I have been a avid user of this tool in the past (I’m still running a pretty old version of this on a XP box) since it expedited deleting of files that were locked by an application. It would clearly identify whom locked the file and give me the option to delete it. However it appears that it is in fact bundled with ADWARE. This is defined by some AV products as a Trojan, including Microsoft Essentials as TrojanClicker:Win32/Yabector.gen
It should be noted that CNet’s Download.com ‘verifys’ its spyware free, yet obviously either this was a clear ‘miss’ on their part, or they do not classify adware as spyware. This confirms my thinking that anything on Download.com should be considered ‘risky’ software since they either mislead or don’t bother to check the software that’s uploaded or availble from download.com. My thinking is they simply are misleading by ‘verify’ing it contains no spyware. Others have disclosed this over the past year and a bit that this version has been around for download so I think ample time was provided for Cnet to correct this.
Continue reading 'Unlocker 1.8.7 Infected with Trojan Adware'»
Security
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Released to the public on October 22 Canonical’s latest and greatest Ubuntu yet “Karmic Koala 9.10“. For many folks using a Linux distribution probably ranks up there with a visit to the dentist, but I have to say that as the kernel keeps improving in leaps and bounds the software wrapped around it can just work on the majority of hardware without issue.
Sure many folks may try it out and find out that it ‘does not work’ with their specific hardware, but compared with last years 8.10 the numbers are down with the sad exception of two particular vendors; ATI and Intel. ATI recently dropped support for much of their older hardware, but then released a new series of drivers that do support. Thankfully using the older drivers or using the open source communities versions can at least get them working, if you have problems with the more supported drivers. Intel on the other hand has basically thrust it’s middle finger up at the linux community with a blatant refusal to provide open source to allow many distributions to be able to integrate support, so for many it means booting to a broken system, and downloading proprietary drivers and praying it works. Obviously this isn’t the end of the world, but from my perspective a seriously ‘good’ reason to avoid using Intel hardware, especially if you want to use wine to run Windows games or applications, you’d do so much better with non-Intel chipsets. nVidia has the best support out of the box for most people not only linux users, but also windows users that it’s becoming a staple requirement. Don’t get me wrong, Intel does provide drivers, but do not expect them to work directly from installation. In some cases the generic drivers get installed and it works, in other cases you’re faced with non-working hardware and off to the various support forums seeking a solution. Thankfully they are available.
In my situation I decided to get a new laptop and specifically bought a Compaq CQ60 which features NO Intel or ATI hardware, simply so I could avoid any hassles. I’m pretty good at fixing these issues, but if I am spending money and the amount is equal, why buy something with hardware that will not work? So without further adieu, I release my notes on installing Ubuntu 9.10 x64 on this laptop.
Continue reading 'Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala” Release Candidate – Installation Notes'»
Computers & Tech
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How many times have you discovered that your hard disk is filling up even though you are not installing any applications. You think ‘do I really have that much data’, or you store your data on a separate drive from your OS and applications (something we recommend to all clients and friends) and cannot understand why your OS or application drive keeps filling up.
Chances are its because of the applications themselves either downloading content into it’s application directory, or it uses the windows ‘Application Data’ directory to store temporary or cached data, some cases even permanent data remains in these directories.
A good example of this is Google Earth that keeps it’s cache database in your Apps Data directory, and can easily exceed several gigabytes in size.
Or maybe you love the convenience of the “My Documents” directory and accessing it directly from the start menu, but don’t have enough room for your data.
Continue reading 'Moving Directories In Windows — Using Junctions'»
Computers & Tech
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I usually advise clients that the vast bulk of these tools are simply nothing more than snake-oil products. However many self-proclaimed experts on many support forums tend to get annoyed with me making such statements. I feel their annoyance may simply reflect the fact that many of these products may well support these same sites, which would be a conflict of interest. Regardless, I’ve never seen any substantial GOOD come from these tools.
After reading this article on MaximumPC, I felt that I would quote the relevent sections to indicate that they are simply products to make you part with your money and nothing more. Few if any offer any serious advantage to the average person, and even fewer advantages to the average machine. Frankly I’ve seen a fair amount of work from people who use these tools and break their systems, so I guess I can be happy for the work. I’m positive I don’t know anyone who has anything ‘positive’ to say about these tools. Registry bloat is a non-issue and no one needs to delete dead old entries UNLESS they are relevent to a malware infection. In which case ‘some’ of these tools can be handy in a malware cleaners toolbox, but only if they know what they are doing.
Continue reading 'Registry Cleaners – Do They Really Improve Your Machine?'»
Computers & Tech
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Well I finally have the site migrated over. I can honestly say the testing was the hardest part, several weeks fiddling with problems on the test server, and when we went live, only one minor hiccup which I’m glad to say Tim from Hostpapa reminded us…check file permissions. Doh!
Now that this is done this comes with good news and bad news. First the good news.
Continue reading 'Changed Site'»
Site News & Updates
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