Why!? Because I’m starting to become like my mother, that’s why. Recently, I’ve found out that I tend to have quite a bit of energy the day after I’ve been out drinking. In some cases, it’s so extreme that you can compare me to the energizer bunny on speed. Yup, not a pretty picture at all. So what have I done today? Well, I started with scrubbing down the toilet, sink and shower, so now the bathroom looks all shiny and nice. In fact, it sparkles so much that you can get temporarily blinded. :) Then went the turn over to the bedroom, changed the sheets and hung the pillows and duvets out to air. Dusted the whole place down. Then came the living room and kitchen, all made to look it’s best. Even cleaned out the fridge.

Then I took a short break, and made dinner. What was on tonights menu? Tikka masala, a great Indian dish with rice. Though, I was all out of chicken so I had to use pork instead. But personally, I think pork goes better to the tikka masala than chicken does, so I wasn’t really disappointed. Of course, after having done so much work around the apartment, I ate too much. I was barely able to move afterwards, and thus spent quite a bit of time in front of the telly. When things started to return to normal, all I could feel was fear, the fear of the revelation that had come to me earlier on today;

I’m starting to become more and more like my mom! YIKES!!!!!!!!!!

I had a really big fight against spyware yesterday. Recently, my boss had complained about sluggish performance on his office computer, and processes that started on its own and really annoying pop-up windows. When I was first approached with this scenario, I just told him in plain text. You are infected with the plague of the web; spyware. So what to do!? Well, here comes our good friend Ad-Aware in. It’s just like a virus scanner, but it scans for malicious programs running that virus detectors doesn’t scan for, but might do just as much damage.

The first scan revealed that the computer was infected with quite a list of different types of spyware. Some where key loggers, some where usage statistics gatherers, some were drone like processes, just waiting to be used in a coordinated DDoS attack. After three scans, and the removal of more persistent spyware the computer still showed signs of being infected, even though Ad-Aware was saying everything was fine. So I started to dig a little, and by a sign of good luck, the process that caused this havoc crashed, leaving a dialog that revealed my the name of the executable. I tried to delete the file, but that of course was impossible at first, since the file was in use by the system. So I had to dive into the system registry, and see what trails it had there, and of course to remove its startup presence in the system. So after having cleaned up the registry by hand, I was ready to reboot. The computer rebooted, and I was finally able to remove the persistent little bastard that caused the havoc on my bosses computer. Nothing like playing a digital Sherlock Holmes.

But what was really good about this whole thing was that I learned something new, I learned my boss to enforce a little more aware surfing pattern, he will now use Ad-Aware on a weekly basis to scan his computer along with his already existing anti virus solution. But, the best thing is of course, that I made him ditch Internet Explorer and move over to Firefox! Yet another follower added to the loyal user base of the best browser on earth! Go Firefox!

Yes, you’ve heard me. And it’s a phrase being used on the net more and more often, and with a good reason. Not only are we being spammed via e-mail, but spammers have found other ways to spam us as well. You’ve had spam on IRC for ages too, but it’s not that often you read about IRC in the press. But recently, you’ve been getting spam over the instant messaging service from Microsoft, MSN. The new trend for spam sent over instant messaging services is called SPIM. But the spam that is really getting on my nerves these days, is blog spam. Over the last years, blogging has become a wide spread phenomena all over the glob. The usage of blogs has become so widely used, that it has become an influence on politics and the media. You only need to look back to what happened last year, with Dan Rather from CBS who was fired after having been slightly trigger happy with announcing a piece of information that turned out to be false. The case was blown wide open by a blogger, that could prove with simple methods that the case documents Dan Rather had based the case on was falsified. But to get back on track, spam!

As I said, lately I’ve been getting an insane amount of so called comment spam to my blog. This means, it’s spam disguised as comments to articles posted on my blog. Of course, all these comments are bogus and contains nothing else than advertisements to online gambling sites. Ok, I gotta hand it to them. They’ve found an area where it is easy to spam, and exploited that weakness for all it’s worth. But for goodness sake, who really likes spam, other than those that gain revenue from them!? NO ONE! I’m getting fed up with deleting comment spam daily, so today I’ve implemented a solution in the form of a WordPress plug-in to rid my blog of this problem. The plug-in is called Spam-Karma, and is written by Dr. Dave. So far it seems to be working quite well, and I will have my eyes fixed on what it does and how well it works. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

And to all you spammers:

May you all die a slow and painful death, and roast on an open fire for all eternity. (reference)

I read in the news today that the Russian web page AllOfMP3.com was getting heat from the Russian government for their alleged crimes towards copyright laws. Allofmp3.com is a music site that offers the end user the possibility to download from a vast music library at a very low cost. The current price is two cents per downloaded megabyte, so for a full dollar you are able to download 50 megabytes of music, which roughly amounts to a full CD at a decent bit rate quality. They also offer you the music in the most commonly used formats, and at variable bit rates. Which means you as the end user choose what quality you want.

The situation in Russia has always been that the government has been quite liberal to what goes on at Russian web sites. They have never really bothered with strict laws, and the laws that were close to strict were really never governed. But given Allofmp3’s price line and their recent media coverage, I have a strong suspicion that not only the music industry has laid pressure on the Russian government, but that the likes of iTunes has a finger in this “game”. Because one of the many features Allofmp3 has to offer, is the fact that the material you download from Allofmp3 is not DRM protected. Which means you are free to do whatever you want with the music you download. One of the dreaded things about DRM is the fact that you are forced into limiting the playback of your downloaded content to the machine you downloaded it to. So that means that when you buy a new PC, you have to get all the music all over again. And as a end user, having paid for your music you for sure want to continue playing your content. I wish that DRM never emerged as a technology, and I’m happy that you have alternatives such as Allofmp3. But for how long!? I’m afraid not for much longer.

I smell conspiracy all the way!

Ah well, it was about due time I started writing on this site again. Haven’t uttered a word in nearly three months, which is quite odd because I’ve had heaps to say, I just haven’t been able to figure out how to say it. Which is a odd, given the fact that I can be quite outspoken from time to time. As a gesture to me starting up again, I’ve gone over to using a new site layout, courtesy of Yusop.net. I think the layout is really nice, and is a design I really fell comfortable with. So please, if you have comments please share them with me.

My situation in life has improved somewhat, for those of you that remember my lung collapse last August, it has stabilized to the extent that it is back to normal operation which I’m thankful for. I’m still per definition unemployed, working the odd shift here and there at my old employer. Currently, I’m awaiting answers from two applications I’ve sent in. And the jobs could not be more different. One is for the Epcot center at the Walt Disney World Resort and the other is for a large Norwegian consumer electrics store. So it’s either back to waiting tables, working in a restaurant or doing maintenance work on computers. Either works for me, but one involves moving to another continent. Which means I’ll be trying to work abroad for the second time, and if it goes through, hopefully with better experience than with me little “joy ride” to Spain last year for those of you that remember that.

I hope that you will stay tuned and return here once in a while to read my rantings, and that you like my new theme. The rantings of a confused computer nerd is back! :) (PS: For those of you wondering if that picture is of my behind, I have to dissapoint you! :P)