Is your antivirus enough?

Trojans – myths & facts

Not so long ago, the more knowledgeable PC users were well aware of the risks that computer viruses posed. Only a few years later, almost every PC user is aware of the very-real dangers that a virus can pose. Many of us use some form of anti-virus software, and a reasonable number of us diligently keep the anti-virus definitions up to date.

Only a complete novice would question the need for good anti-virus software today. However many users do not realise that these programs may actually provide their users with a false sense of security. One common mistake is to assume that anti-virus software automatically means that your system is secure. It isn’t. Most anti-virus applications deal specifically with one thing – viruses. They don’t protect your system from intruders, and they don’t ensure that other software that you may use is secure and legitimate.

Another very dangerous assumption that many users of anti-virus software make, is that their anti-virus application will also keep their systems clear of trojans. Not so. In order to understand this, let’s take a step back.

Despite the fact that they are often confused, viruses and trojans are two very different things. A virus by definition makes copies of itself and spreads, in much the same way that it’s biological namesake will do among hosts. A trojan on the other hand, also known as a trojan horse, is simply a program that pretends to be something else.

So why are trojans or trojan horses so dangerous? The basic idea is that you download a program, for example one that you think is some sort a game demo. When you run the demo, to your surprise, nothing happens. Or so you thought.

What may have happened is that you’ve just unwittingly run some form of program that has planted itself on your hard drive. Perhaps it’s going to be a very basic application, and simply delete some files on your system. Perhaps it’s an even more sinister tool that will actually give other people full access to your hard drive and system. Sounds ridiculous? It happens literally every single day, to computer users all around the world.

Whether the trojan you just unwittingly downloaded and installed will delete files from your system, open your web connection to snoopers, share your emails or simply watch everything that you do, one thing’s for sure. You don’t want it there.

And the terrifying fact? You may want to be sure that you’re sitting down here. Most anti-virus applications will not protect your system from trojan horses. Why? Well the real question is why should they? As explained, a virus and a trojan are two very different things. Getting a shot from a Doctor against the flu won’t protect you from being hit by a bus after you leave the surgery. Other preventative measures are required.

So in the above scenario of the user downloading what they think is a game demo, they may even scan the file with their anti virus software, and receive the all clear. Why? Because the file isn’t infected with a virus. The anti-virus software isn’t saying that the software is safe to install, it isn’t saying that it won’t make a mess of your system files, and most importantly, it isn’t saying that it doesn’t contain a trojan or trojan horse.

In short, if you want to keep your PC safe, follow the three golden hints.

1. Use a good anti trojan application, that offers regular trojan definition updates. Use the software regularly, and keep it up to date.
2. Use a good anti virus application, that offers regular virus definition updates. Use the software, and keep it up to date.
3. Keep your operating system up to date with security fixes. Details of Microsoft’s security updates may be found at their website.

How to enable AHCI : Windows XP

In case your your XP installation was done using IDE mode, and you decide to use AHCI for what ever reason, don’t worry. You can do that without reinstalling your Windows XP. This trick might usefull to for those who are confuse / lazy / afraid / <put your reason here> to slipstream AHCI driver into WinXP installation disc.

• Start Device Manager (Right click on My Computer –> Property –> Hardware –> Device Manager

How to remove Ubuntu Boot Loader : XP and Vista

In case of you screw up your linux and wanna get rid Ubuntu Linux boot loader…. here is the remedy

Windows XP:

• Set your BIOS to boot from CD or DVD drive
• Put your Windows XP installation disc into your CD or DVD drive
• Boot up your computer and start from CD
• With your Windows CD. When asked, choose “repair” and launch fixmbr. This command replaces GRUB with Windows bootloader.
• Reboot again and you have done.

Windows Vista :

• Set your BIOS to boot from CD or DVD drive
• Put your Windows Vista installation disc into your CD or DVD drive

Izzi Broadband : Shaping and Throttling Now

Urgh…..it really piss me off. Now, not only Streamyx and other major player shapping or throttling P2P packet, Izzi follow their dumb step to. Damn.

Either encryption or what ever trick I tried, the P2P or Bittorent speed still sucks.

Recently I notice, most of the time, my maximum speed only 1/4 what I paid for. 250 kbps instead of 1 Mbps. Maybe, 2 hours (from 5-7 AM), I could get 500 kbps (direct download or speedtest) but still BT speed sucks like crap. 8-12 kBps max. Nothing more.

So, ladies and gentlemen, if you are going to subscribe Izzi because of you might think they are not throttling P2P packet as before, stop now. Else, you will waste at least RM 180.00 (mandatory registration fee). Don’t believe their dumb salesman or salesgirl who keep claiming, you could get full refund. It is clearly state in their term of agreement, RM180 will be charged immediately upon signup. Full stop.

And to get your refund, you need to come to their office by yourself. Sorry mate, they will not waste their cheap money to send you a check via Pos Malaysia RM0.30 cent stamp. And, most of the unsatisfied user claim that Izzi took more than 2 months to process their refund claim. Some even 3 months. What the crap. RM 1300+ refund in 3 months. Urgh.

I dont bother to complain by phone or email anymore because seriously, they just only able to talk but no action to follow up. Their so call technical service guy simply listen to your complain, then bye bye. If you request report number, they will give you one. Then, no follow up from you after several days…case closed automatically by that so call oh so technical guy. It happen to me, I knew. I simply don’t trust what ever they said anymore.

It pretty funny to remember, how cocky they were last year. They claimed by 2010 they will cover the whole Malaysia AND 2Mbps in the pipeline, predicted will be implemented first quater of 2008. Heh, my arse. They not double up the bandwidth but they divide it by 4. And no more tower expansion by now. Perhaps, customer sign in rate not as much as they predicted, and they start to freeze any kind of expansion, to protect their investment and ROI. That is why, without any hesitation, they throttle P2P packet, they divide 4x the bandwidth (so 400% more customer can use the service at the same time).

They are just phucking greedy. Even they know most of the area already saturated and don’t have any short term plan to build more tower to support ever growing customer, they just keep innocent soul to dump their hard earn  RM1300 to Izzi cash box. I even surprise, at Giant Kelana Jaya, there is a shop (not booth) which sell Izzi broadband. WTF man, this area already saturated and still you can afford to have a proper shop there? I am impress actually.

To be honest, once my contract ended, no more Izzi. Perhaps NO to maxis or celcom 3G too. 3G or fake 4G actually never meant to permanent and heavy usage broadband. They are for road warrior. I think, my only option now, back to Streamyx even I call it Screamyx sometime. I have to admit, due to the nature of copper cable and ADSL, streamyx stability and realiablity are questionable, but its speed is OK. At least 1 Mbps user get 1 Mbps. Most of the user get even more (actual capping at 1.5 Mbps actually).

Maybe I just should buy torrent flux service, direct download using office corporate broadband, and subscribe to streamyx combo RM60.00. At least 384 kbps is better than 250 kbps and pay RM60 less too.

So, Izzi subscriber who currently enjoy 500-1000 kbps at this moment, don’t think you are lucky enough. Sooner or later, your area will get saturated or congested. Just pray, that no one in your area interested to dump RM1300 for Izzi as long as possible…LoL.

Note : iBurst (core technology of Izzi) whitepaper, state, maximum downstream (for download speed) is 24 Mbps. In other word, if your place has 24 user who fully utilize their bandwidth, you are safe. But, more than that, your bandwidth will be half, quatter and perhaps… ….. …..

AHCI vs IDE – Benchmark & Advantage

Recently, more and more user start to notice (note : not enthausiast) their main board or notebook has AHCI, instead of IDE (or legacy IDE). Most of us already aware what is IDE but what the heck is AHCI? What advantage could be gain from AHCI? Is AHCI is future thing of good old IDE interface. Will it slow down my system? Will it conflict my system?

What is AHCI ?

AHCI stand for Advance Host Controller Interface. AHCI is a hardware mechanism that allows software to communicate with Serial ATA (SATA) devices (such as host bus adapters) that are designed to offer features not offered by Parallel ATA (PATA) controllers, such as hot-plugging and native command queuing (NCQ). The specification details a system memory structure for computer hardware vendors in order to transfer data between system memory and the device.

Why Should I Consider Vista

Contradict to my previous post (Why XP not Vista … read here), why don’t we shift our paradigm and look at different perspective. And start to ask ourselves, why should we consider Vista instead of continue to use our old and trusty Windows XP.

Let put out think hat.

Standard De Facto

Latest PC and Notebook come with pre-installed Windows Vista (Either Home, Business or Ultimate). Unfortunately, not many of these manufacturers provide Windows XP driver which will cause a lot of troubles to loyal Windows XP hard die fan. They need to googling here and there to find compatible driver, just want to make it working. So, here is one critical question. Does that driver is highly optimize for your PC or notebook hardware. There is no point to install Windows XP (if the objective is speed) if the drivers for your computer hardwares are not optimize.

nVidia GeForce 9100M G Benchmark Comparison

nVidia GeForce 9100MG Benchmark : A Reality Check

Base on previous review (you can read here) for Acer Aspire 4530 which pre-equipped with GeForce 9100MG, we know that 9100MG score 1415 for 3dMark06 and 3393 for 3Dmark03. But, how good/bad this number mean.

Obviously, for benchmark freak, they will recognize how good this integrated chipset will perform since they have ‘built-in benchmark database’ in their head. But, how about the rest of us. So, a quick check to numeruos website need to be done, to get a rough idea what that number mean.

Acer 4350 score 1415 for 3dmark06

Acer Empowering Technology for Aspire 4530

Happy to report here, Aspire 4530 user who can’t wait any longer to install e-Power Technology for their Aspire 4530, you can install Aspire 4520 E-Power Technology without any problem.

URL for e-Power : http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_4520.html

You need to download “AcerEFM Acer Empowering Framework” and install it first to enable e-Powering to work.

Note : My big green e button (top left of my keyboard) seem not working yet…but overall, everything work fine.

+++++++++++++++++

What is Empowering Technology?

Empowering Technology is designed to make operating your computer easier than ever. It provides a simple-to-use interface and versatile configurations to help you efficiently complete everyday computing tasks.

Want to know more?

Link : http://support.acer-euro.com/empowering_technology/nbutility.html

How to enable AHCI without reformating.

Most current notebook nowadays allow user to set hard disk interface either AHCI (advance) or IDE (legacy). There are several reason why we should use AHCI instead of IDE. One of AHCI advantage is NCQ (Hot swappable seem not so relevan to notebook aight).
The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a hardware mechanism that allows software to communicate with Serial ATA (SATA) devices such as host bus adapters which are designed to offer features not offered by Parallel ATA (PATA) controllers besides higher speeds, such as hot-plugging and native command queuing. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AHCI

AHCI stands for Advanced Host Controller Interface. One of the main reasons for switching to AHCI-mode is to take advantage of the NCQ-Feature of your SATA harddrive. NCQ (Native Command Queuing) allows ATA drives to accept more than one command at a time and dynamically reorder the commands for maximum efficiency. NCQ, when used in conjunction with a hard drive that supports NCQ, can increase storage performance on random workloads.
forum.msi.com.tw

Native Command Queuing

Native Command Queuing (NCQ) is a technology designed to increase performance of SATA hard disks under certain situations by allowing the individual hard disk to internally optimize the order in which received read and write commands are executed. This can reduce the amount of unnecessary going back-and-forth on the drive’s heads, resulting in increased performance (and slightly decreased wear of the drive) for workloads where multiple simultaneous read/write requests are outstanding, most often occurring in server-type applications. However, the current technology actually slows down HD access in certain applications, like games and sequential reads & writes, because of the added latency induced by NCQ logic. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Command_Queuing

AHCI is fully supported in Microsoft Windows Vista and the Linux operating system from kernel 2.6.19. Older operating systems like Windows XP require drivers written by the host bus adapter vendor in order to support AHCI. Windows XP requires the installation of a vendor-specific driver even if AHCI is present on the host bus adapter because Windows XP was released before Serial ATA was invented.

So, how to enable AHCI if you already install Windows Vista using IDE interface.

Solution…

1.	Exit all Windows-based programs.
2.	Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
3.	If you receive the User Account Control dialog box, click Continue.
4.	Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
5.	In the right pane, right-click Start in the Name column, and then click Modify.
6.	In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
7.	On the File menu, click Exit to close Registry Editor

Reboot your notebook, enter bios (F2, del etc), change your hard disk interface to AHCI.

Guide on how to change AHCI setting thru bios : http://komku.blogspot.com/2007/08/windows-xp-and-acer-aspire-4520.html

Credit : Komku blog + Microsoft Support Page

Acer Aspire 4530 (update : 8 Aug 08)

Acer Aspire 4530 is my third notebook, which I review / commented in this blog. The first one is Acer 4520 (AMD Turion x2) which you can read here and the second one is Lenovo Y410 (Core 2 Duo) which you can read here.

For the record, all three notebooks, I bought and setup it using Windows Vista Ultimate with latest driver available, properly restart and defrag all of them before benchmark it using Windows Vista Experience Index. So, roughly, what I am going to write here is my short experience with my new laptop, and how good or bad it is compare to the other two.

Create Self Extracting/Installer for Free

Do you know Windows XP (Home of Pro) have built in self extracting/installer, which might help you to package and deploy multiple files, .exe or installer into one small compress executable installer files. This trick handy for programmer obviously.

Step 1 : Start menu –> Run

Step 2 : Type ‘iexpress’ without ‘

Step 3 : Follow the wizzard.

Done.

Gmail : Multiple addresses but one reciever

Let’s say that your email address is ‘GeorgeBush@gmail.com’, basically everything sent to any of the following email addresses will be forwarded to your primary email.

GeorgeBush@gmail.com G.eorgeBush@gmail.com Ge.orgeBush@gmail.com … … GeorgeBus.h@gmail.com

GeorgeBush@googlemail.com G.eorgeBush@googlemail.com Ge.orgeBush@googlemail.com … … GeorgeBus.h@googlemail.com

And that’s not all, you can place as many dots as you want, it can be even something like ‘G.e.o.r.g.e.B.u.s.h@gmail.com’ and you’ll still get it on ‘GeorgeBush@gmail.com’

CPU : Intel or AMD

This is classic question, what CPU should I use for my new/upgraded system?

Well, we don’t have much choice, do we? Either ‘blue’ or ‘green’ CPU. However, the good news is, you can’t go wrong with either of this CPU. Both CPU is stable enough to run your application. Games is optimize for both CPU. Perhaps certain application a bit bias to certain CPU manufacturer for optimization but generally, both work fine. And both will provide about the same performance too ; with the price they ask.

Historically, I was AMD and Intel user. I own couple of them. My first CPU was Intel Pentium 100, then 166 MMX (notebook), jump to Intel Pentium3 600 MHz. A year later, can resist with AMD performance with their so call slot A Athlon 700, then Athlon socket A 900, upgrade to Atlon 1333 (AXIA code which the best overclocking room at that moment), Athlon XP 1600+. Athlon 2500+ which running at 3200+ since the very first day I bought that processor till now, Intel Pentium Dual Core 1.8 GHz and Core 2 Duo 2.66 GHz.

What can I conclude, there is no such thing that AMD processor is not stable, over heated etc as many will believe. Both processor got their dark age (high temperature CPU).

Why windows XP….not Vista

My PC got 3 OS. Vista, Ubuntu (Linux) and Windows XP. But most of the time (I could say, 95%), I use Windows XP SP3. So, as me (common user) use WinXP instead of the oooh and aaah Vista?

From my point of view…because I dont have strong reason to use Vista. Yes, it has all the bell and whistles, but I don’t use ‘em. The GUI absolutely pretty..but there is no impact on better productivity. In fact, with C2D processor, 2 GB of RAMS, 1 Tera of HDD, seem Vista still slow to my liking. After I installed SP1 for Vista, the OS seem less stable than before. Blue screen start to show up from time to time. Auto reboot is common thing. I could leave my XP for a week without restart (for downloading) but not for Vista. That is for sure. So, I start to have no reason to use vista. Instead, I am thingking right now to remove it permanently from my HDD to claim back the resource (hard disk space).