The Misadventures of Penoi

DNS change progation is one of sysads problem. After a dns record change, nslookup result will differ depending on which region you are in.

Check your DNS global progation

 http://www.whatsmydns.net/

beware of this scam, i just received a call claiming they are from microsoft and said that my computer was sending malicious info in the net. Curiously, i removed my network connection(for safety reason) and followed their instruction..they asked me to go to the Event Viewer and asked if theres any error.. obviously there wil be erros in windows.they requested me to delete the error logs.. obviously i wasnt able to delete the logs.. after that he told me that a microsoft certified technician will scan my computer online by opening something which irritates me.. if theres any issues with my pc.. i will deal with it.. i can reformat anytime or use Linux.. and i dont want microsoft support to mess around with my pc.. the caller even says that if there will be any problem with my computer, it will not be Microsoft's fault.. to hell Microsoft cares???i hung up the phone.

Did some research on this scam and found the following sites.. please be warned and this kind of modus operandi is still on the loose

http://www.computerrepairtips.net/phone-call-from-microsoft-about-virus-is-a-scam/

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-security/i-received-a-phone-call-from-someone-claiming-i/4489f388-d6de-416d-9158-0079764bb001

 

Im using Tweetdeck for almost a month now. Since my Chrome freezes my computer and switched to Opera(in which Tweetdeck doesnt have apps for Opera) i installed the desktop version.

Twitter is not bad at all. It depends on how you use it. For example, i want to know the latest news on a certain topics, i will just add a column in Tweetdeck with the corresponding keywords search.

My current keywords are:

RHCE RHCSA centos Redhat

I just came from my night shift and found AVG was updated and needed for a computer reboot. To my amaze, the New AVG Internet Security 2011 update causes Windows 7 to crash. Even in Safe Mode, it wont boot at all. As of now, AVG haven't release a quick fix yet. Or in worst case scenario, reinstall Windows.

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Update

How to fix your computer after AVG Internet Security 2011 update windows crash

1. download and burn AVG Rescue CD http://www.avg.com/ww-en/download-file-cd-arl-iso

2. Boot thru AVG rescue CD. Go to Utilities > File Manager then navigate to /mnt/sda(x) where x depends on the partition of your computer.

3. Rename the following files

\Program Files(x86)\AVG\AVG10\avgrs*.exe     >>  avgrs*.exe.bak
\Program Files(x86)\AVG\AVG10\avgchsv*.exe >> avgchsv*.exe.bak

4. Press ctrl+alt+del to reboot your computer. Make sure that you remove your AVG Rescue CD.

5. Once your computer successfully booted. Download the latest AVG Internet Security 2011 Installer http://www.avg.com/ww-en/download-trial

6. Run the installer and click Repair. After the repair, reboot your computer

(or you skip step 5  and 6. Uninstall AVG and install other free Antivirus software)

You can also use Linux-based live CDs as an alternative to AVG Rescue CD

As of now, the issue is being tracked on the following sites:

AVG Official Fix: AVG FIX FOR WIN 7 64 BIT CUSTOMERS NOW RELEASED

AVG Forum : Some Windows 7 operating systems cannot be started after latest update

AVG Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/avgfree

#AVG Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23AVG

I'm using Trendmicro Internet Security Pro for almost one year and my license will expire Jan 2011. Since it will be SITEX this coming weekend, its time for me to hunt and try other antivirus system. First choice is Kaspersky. When im trying to check the pricing online, i was amazed that Kaspersky's online store was tagged as Dangerous by Trendmicro's Web filter. Now thats what i call "killing the competition" :)

But i wont settle with Kaspersky as the review is not that quite good. Will try AVG or Nod32 or avast. Lets see..

Seems that the local test will post the speed that i paid for. But across the world test shows that i only have 3Mbps of speed.

Last week i received an email asking if I'm in posting their ads. To check out their ADS Unit, i must click a Google Picasa Web album url. Curious, I clicked on the URL from the email and it forwarded me on a Google Account authentication page.

Hmm smells fishy. Remember that my wife’s yahoo account was hacked after someone from her friend’s hacked YM asked her to check out the pictures on his flicker. In just a minute, her username and password was harvested by the hacker and we have to call Yahoo just to retrieve the credentials.

You wont notice that this is a bogus page.



http://picasaphotos21.t35.com/photoalbum.htm

hmmm, ok. Not your usual Google URL and looks like a subdomain of t35.com

Let’s check out www.t35.com



Boom!!! t35.com is a free website service. So the hacker uses a free web service to host his fake Google Picasa page. The minute you entered your Google Account username and password it will be harvested.

How will you identify if the page is bogus or not? Here are some of the basic steps that you can use:

1. Google always use webpage SSL certificates. You will notice that the URL starts with https://…. instead of http://… on its page authentication.

2. Update your internet browsers. New browsers are intelligent enough if the SSL certificates is fake or not.

3. Always check the URL of the page. Most of the hackers uses free web service hosting to host their bogus site.

Internet security awareness will always save your butt and your hard earned ADS payments.

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