Update re: PC Live Guard has been updated

Apparently the upgrade to PC Live Guard was more significant than I had thought. There turned out to be traces of it left on the machine after following the manual removal instructions. It was no longer running but had deactivated the Task Manager and was reporting that it had the firewall and anti-virus all taken care of to Windows' Security Center. It would not allow Trend Micro AntiVirus Plus AntiSpyware to update itself, nor would it allow AdAware to run. What eventually seems to have taken care of it was Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. So, props to those guys.

PC Live Guard has been updated

The lovely folks behind PC Live Guard have updated their program. Since I was unable to find the details online, I want to post what I discovered yesterday to aid others in its removal.

I essentially followed the instructions for manual removal at Spywares Remove but many small details have been changed.

First off, the executable was not PC339.exe or even PC0a1a.exe, PC7aee.exe, PCccec.exe, or PC11e0.exe, but pc3454.exe. I would suspect it’s randomly generated but that’s just a guess.

Other differences:

• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xp_edb11.DocHostUIHandler
  was replaced by
  HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PC3454.DocHostUIHandler
  
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes "URL" = "http://search-gala.com/?&uid=7&q={searchTerms}"
  was replaced by
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes "URL" = "http://findgala.com/?&uid=213&q={searchTerms}"
  
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent\Post Platform "[xSP_2:117fc3395e69e29f71abba93a68c4181_7]"
  was replaced by
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent\Post Platform "[xSP_2:3357b9f24327f82c2acfe24faad7c7c6_213]"
  
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes "URL" = "http://search-gala.com/?&uid=7&q={searchTerms}"
  was replaced by
  HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes "URL" = "http://findgala/&uid=213&q={searchTerms}"
  
• The location of the application changed from:
  c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\117fc
  and
  c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\PCYZDUHBELG
  to
  c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\345481a
  and
  c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\PCTBGGHWPLG
  

Aside from those details, it was otherwise the same - hopefully I didn't miss anything important. The most important thing, though, is to remove the registry entry that starts the program at system startup:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run "PC Live Guard"

First Page, Finally!

Finally! I haven't checked in a while but as of right now if you google willmar web developer this site is the 98th result; that's the first page, assuming you've configured Google to show 100 results per page. That counts, right?

Connecting to a Windows PC via a LAN

This is going to make me sound like an idiot but, with all the googling I did for it, I never ran across this suggestion:

If you're having trouble connecting to the Windows machine in just the next room and you have sharing enabled and everything seems to be set up but you just can't connect, make sure you've opened up a hole through the firewall on the Windows box.

It took me until the Windows network troubleshooter suggested I was having hardware issues before it struck me - I could ping from Windows to Linux but not the other way 'round.

That is all. Grr.

Other keywords: packet loss workgroup visible "failed to recieve share list from server"

Running Box Backup 0.11rc2 on Ubuntu Intrepid

Installation and setup went as expected. Running, however, brought my internet connection to its knees.

After some googling and some help from Kelly, the Hutman IT guy, I installed Bert Hubert's Wondershaper. and, with some tweaking of the network configuration for that script, it sure seems to have taken care of things!

Next, I'll verify the backups are valid. Then I'll try to have it back up files on the family Windoze PC...

Installing Box Backup 0.11rc2 on Ubuntu Intrepid

I had to jump through a few minor hoops to get the latest Box Backup release candidate to build on my AMD64 Ubuntu Intrepid box today so I thought I'd jot my notes down here.

• Added #include string.h to these files:
  • lib/common/Logging.cpp
  • lib/common/Timer.cpp
  • bin/bbstoreaccounts/bbstoreaccounts.cpp
  • lib/common/Test.h
• Added #include stdlib.h to these files:
  • lib/common/WaitForEvent.cpp
  • lib/backupclient/BackupClientRestore.cpp
  • lib/backupclient/BackupStoreFile.h
  • bin/bbackupquery/bbackupquery.cpp
  • bin/bbackupctl/bbackupctl.cpp
  • lib/raidfile/RaidFileRead.cpp
• Changed 'std::mem' to '::mem' and 'std::strlen' to '::strlen' in this file:
  • lib/backupclient/BackupClientFileAttributes.cpp
• Added a third parameter of 0x777 to the open call in:
  • lib/backupclient/BackupClientFileAttributes.cpp, line 1113

It then built, albeit with some warnings, and passed the tests using 'make test'. I will be configuring it to actually perform the backups soon.

In order to get the tests to pass using the runtest.pl script, I also had to add #include stdlib.h to the following file - I don't know why running the tests in those two different ways would make a difference:

• lib/common/DebugMemLeakFinder.cpp

The first error I ran into was: Logging.cpp:290: error: 'strerror' was not declared in this scope.

Venice Restored Beyond Former Glory

Venice crumbled during our move last August.

Venice is our water-​cooled, Socket-​A computer that I originally built in 1999. I had done a fair job of choosing components so was able to really stretch the life with various upgrades - processor, RAM, sound card, and video card.

Anyway, we'd moved that ourselves, in the van, rather than have the movers take it, to ensure nothing happened to it. Well, after everything was unloaded from the the moving van and most everything else was unloaded from our van, we had to drive somewhere. The computer was precariously perched, having been intended to have been unloaded the next trip out, and it fell and broke.

After much suffering with our backup computer, we began to see black ink again, finally, so I traced the problem down to the motherboard and received the replacement (which is a slight upgrade itself and opens up the ability to add faster RAM now) a week ago. That was when I discovered the hard drive had also been a casualty; its replacement (500GB for $80?! I remember working at Software Etc when floppies finally went below $1/MB!) arrived Friday afternoon.

It's now back up and running Ubuntu. Yeah, Windoze is on there, too, but only for games. When is that going to stop being the case? I had truly expected Linux to hit it big after Apple moved to a Un*x kernel. <sigh>

Six Month Report

It's been six months since I made the move from big-​city corporate software engineer to small-​town web developer. Overall things have gone well and I am a much happier person. I love doing web development!

Starting today I am a full-​full-​time employee of Hutman, the company I've done almost all of my work for. (I've been 3/4-​time for about a month.) Full-​full-​time means I'm now making a little more than 50% of what I'd been making in St Paul and should mean we're taking in a little more than is going out!

Last week I had a table at a Business Web Seminar put on by the Kandiyohi Economic Development Commission. I doubt I'll get any direct customers out of it but it was great to meet the other local web designers and developers. I think I'm the only one doing it with Linux! And, still, one of the most prolific local designers, Dennis Benson, who is also a piano tuner, traded a tuning for some PHP code - awesome.

Yesterday I met with my church's board to discuss doing a website for them. I got the go-​ahead and even some direction so I've started working that project with earnest. It's pro bono work, of course. I'm going to use this opportunity to branch out a little and learn the Drupal content management system. That will add some flexibility to my toolbelt and give me a broader and deeper understanding of CMSes in general, making me more effective as a developer of the Hutman CMS.

Yeah, so things aren't progressing exactly as I'd hoped but I'm very pleased. It really looks like it's going to work out here in Willmar.

GMail, 64-bit Linux, Flash, and Opacity

There are two performance issues I've been having with my laptop.

First, Flash. Periodically yet irregularly, for reasons unknown, the process "/​usr/​lib/​nspluginwrapper/​i386/​linux/​npviewer.bin --plugin /​usr/​lib/​flashplugin-nonfree/​libflashplayer.so --connection /​org/​wrapper/​NSPlugins/​libflashplayer.so/​942-4" goes bonkers and sucks up all of one CPU core, completely disabling the computer. It is, apparently, a 64-​bit Linux issue and the debate rages as to whether the issue is with the Flash player itself or simply the wrapper, as there is no 64-​bit native plugin.

The second issue is opacity in Firefox. CSS 3.0 introduces the powerful opacity setting. Sadly, Firefox for Linux and, possibly, Mac, has a big problem with it and the browser slows to a crawl whenever it draws a page containing an opacity other than 1, whether it's during loading or whilst scrolling.

I've long had issues with the performance of the new GMail interface; the old interface causes no issues. Today I discovered that plain-​Jane GMail uses Flash! I disabled all the Labs, and my GMail Firefox AddOns (Better GMail and GTD Gmail) but, still, towards the end of GMail loading, a Flash process popped up!

The solution was to add the venerable Flashblock AddOn. I'd left it behind in lieu of using NoScript but NoScript is too general in its approach for this issue. I need GMail to be allowed to utilize JavaScript, just not Flash. With this AddOn things work marvelously! I can use all the Labs I want (Multiple Inboxes, woohoo!) and everthing is working just hunky dory. Do note, however, that I don't use chat and that could well be what uses Flash. Why it needs Flash when it's disabled, I don't know.

Hopefully I won't be updating this saying "Well, looks like GMail needs Flash for <insert critical feature here>!"