Nov

4

Financial redness - I need your help!

Filed Under General | 5 Comments

If you were considering donating a few bucks for my work on Dial-a-fix but hadn't gotten around to it, now would be a great time to do so. I have come into some harsh financial issues and I need all of the help I can get. Even if you can spare just $5 USD, it will help out a great deal. I'm trying to figure out how I can get $400 USD before November 16th, but it isn't looking too bright. I think I'm going to sell some of my computer parts for spare change, but it isn't ever going to make it to $400.

Huge thanks to William Sanders for donating $25 USD before I even posted this! Your donation helps a great deal.

Donate

edit: If you'd like your name listed and/or website linked in a new tab of Dial-a-fix's about box (in the next version I release), let me know about it when you make a donation of $5 or more.

Edit 2: Thanks to George Hoffman for his generous donation of $20!

Sep

23

Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool

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Every second Tuesday of each month an update of the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool (aka MSRT) is released.

It is a very useful little tool that can detect and remove a growing number of viruses, worms, trojans and rootkits. And the best part of it is that is free. ‘Free?’ I hear you say, ‘from Microsoft?’ And the answer is, perhaps surprisingly, ‘Yes, it is!’

According to Microsoft the tool has been used a staggering 2.7 billion times and in doing so it detected and removed 16 million instances of malware from 5.7 million infected computers. In most cases the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool removed just one single malware variant from a computer but in some cases it has removed dozens and even hundreds of malware variants from computers. This last number can be easily explained by the fact that a backdoor can download lots of other malicious programs.

How do they know, you wonder? Well, just like the error reports you voluntarily should send to Microsoft when your computer experiences a serious problem and has to shut down, the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool will send a report to Microsoft with just the basic information about the malware it detected and removed. And just like you should never disable the error reporting service, you should never stop this tool from reporting its findings to Microsoft. Both send no identifiable personal info about you or your computer to Microsoft.

Using this information Microsoft recently published a report in which some interesting points are made.

It transpired that instances of an infection dramatically fell after a particular infection was added to the Microsoft Malicious Removal Tool. Some families of malware experienced decreases greater than 75%. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? Because people only use this program if and when their computers were infected.

Microsoft doesn’t make any comments about how it is possible that all that malware wasn’t blocked, detected or removed in the first place by an up-to-date anti-virus and anti-spyware product. Even now, after so much publicity and crashed computers, people are still strangely complacent about their security and privacy.

Jun

25

TheNotifier v0.0.0.26 (alpha)

Filed Under General, Software, Technical | Leave a Comment

NOTE: Do not redistribute TheNotifier. It is for personal testing only.

Download: TheNotifier v0.0.0.26 (~198KB, *.exe)

As explained previously, this is a prototype app I'm working on which will help me (and eventually you) fight certain malware attacks. At the moment, it just allows you look at what's going on.

As always, comment here, or post at the "Lunarsoft.net DjLizard.net software support forum" (preferred).

Changelog:

* Moved to tabbed interface
* Added more specific filtering functions (None, known, or Microsoft)
* Added AppInit_DLLs tab with basic support (very alpha) - more to come
* 'Jump to key' when on the AppInit_DLLs tab will take you to the 'Windows' key (where AppInit_DLLs is)
* Added the following known-good Notify entries: avldr, Caveo, ckpNotify, Command AntiVirus Download, ComPlusSetup, CwWLEvent, dimsntfy, DPWLN, FolderGuard, GoToMyPC, loginkey, MetaFrame, nwprovau, OPXGina, PCANotify, PFW, ppeclt, PRISMAPI.DLL, PRISMGNA.DLL, psfus, QConGina, RAinit, RegCompact, SABWinLogon, SDNotify, Sebring, T3Notify, TabBtnWL, Timbuktu Pro, tpfnf2, tpgwlnotify, tphotkey, VESWinlogon, WB, WBSrv, Zboard, zsnotify

I have a list of many known-good AppInit_DLLs so you don't have to let me know about those yet.

Also, I have a lot of work left on DAF before I can release another update, so don't worry.

Jun

13

MSHTML.DLL

Filed Under Dial-a-fix, General, Software, Technical | 7 Comments

It's patch tuesday - a bunch of fixes came out. Visit Windows Update to get them, or wait for them to be downloaded with idle network bandwidth, by BITS.

I haven't been paying attention lately (I've been quite busy) but a new version of MSHTML.DLL is out - 6.00.2900.2912. It can't be registered (at all), thankfully. The previous version, .2838, was not supposed to be registerable either, but Microsoft broke it. This time, it spits out an error code (specifically, hex 0×80029c4a / decimal -2147312566: TYPE_E_CANTLOADLIBRARY). Dial-a-fix v0.58 (which is pretty close to being v0.60) recognizes certain versions of files now, and ignores the ones it knows it can't register. I'll have a new public beta soon, I think. I've got to do some more private testing first (I've made a truckload of changes since the last public beta).

edit: Wait, the one on my dev machine is 6.0.2900.2912, and it DOES register. Something's not right here!

edit 2: Ok, I found out what the problem is. A rogue program removed mshtml.tlb because it thought it was no longer being used. WTF! Ugh, 3rd party software. This post has been rendered invalid. At least I have something to check for with Dial-a-fix now...

Jun

13

Site change

Filed Under General | Comments Off

Getting a lot of spam lately (despite Bad Behavior's best efforts) so I decided to turn off registration. It wasn't useful anyway. I'm also deleting all current users, so don't be alarmed...

May

25

Digital Doctors

Filed Under General | 1 Comment

I work for Digital Doctors. The tech manager and I just converted our website from a static Dreamweaver HTML-uncompliant mess to a brand spankin' new Wordpress site, and the result is outstanding. The look is finally consistent, it's easy to edit, it's 100 times faster than the old site, standards compliant, dynamic, and easy for search engines to spider. I will also be writing articles for it for our current and future customers — so they will not be as technical as the articles I post here.

Anyway, if you live in Bradenton, Sarasota (or anywhere else in Manatee/Sarasota county) Florida, you can bring your computer to our shop and I will work on it! If you live in Tampa/St. Petersburg/Clearwater, you can call and one of our skilled technicians can come to you.

Our labor rates are not the highest, and not the lowest, but there's no other computer repair facility in a 50 mile radius that can do what we do - we are the best, most fair shop at which I've ever had the pleasure of working. Most repairs are 1 to 1½ hours, but we have a max labor rate of 2 hours — no matter how many things we do, the most you will ever be charged for is 2 hours of labor (plus parts, if applicable). We're also able to work on smaller things in quarter-hour increments. Give us a call for current labor rates.

Digital Doctors
7333 52nd Place East,
Bradenton, FL 34203
1-941-747-9477 Sarasota/Manatee (ask for Mike if you want to talk to me!)
1-727-541-4410 Pinellas
1-813-932-4500 Tampa

Here's a Yahoo! map of our location.

Mar

1

DjLizard.net wiki Firefox search plugin

Filed Under General | Leave a Comment

http://mycroft.mozdev.org/download.html?name=DjLizard.net&submitform=Search

Feb

16

The DjLizard.net wiki

Filed Under General, Technical | Leave a Comment

All current and future technical articles are being reconstructed into the new DjLizard.net wiki. We hope that the collaborative efforts possible in a wiki environment (not to mention the readability) will help us produce technical articles of a much higher quality. We've already managed to create numerous new articles for it. Check it out!

Jan

29

Google advanced operators

Filed Under General | Leave a Comment

Fred pointed out this nice guide to Google's advanced operators. I knew less than half of the operators. (I only knew about several of the [all/]in* ones).

Jan

17

Changing the theme...

Filed Under General | 4 Comments

Bear with me while I make adjustments.

Edit: Ok, I'm pretty much done.

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