Today some stupid advertisement delivery agency decided to ship a Flash based add that automatically infects your computer with a fake security suite (named “AV Security Suite”). This affects the latest Flash player, regardless of web browser.
Neat, right? Oh, it gets better. AV Security Suite is ransomware, which does not allow you to open any applications that it knows could close it. Great, isn’t it? The seemingly good thing is you can get rid of it using System Restore. Do this by:
- Pulling the powerplug to your PC (don’t do a “proper” shutdown or restart).
- Boot into safemode. Usually, you need to press and hold the F8 key while booting, and select safemode from the menu. However, if you did not shutdown properly this menu should automatically come up.
- Finally, in safemode use System Restore to go back to before the infection happened. Note that Windows 7 users can go strait to restoring using the “Restore Computer” menu item rather than safemode boot.
Going forward, remove Adobe Flash player from your computer. Since Adobe can’t seem to fix this issue, Flash player is not to be trusted (add Adobe Acrobat reader to your untrusted list as well). If you must have Flash player (for any reason) and use Firefox install Flashblock, it could save you time in the future.
-John Havlik
[end of transmission, stay tuned]
It’s really simple. So simple that I felt like an idiot when I did not get it to work right away. If you have a motherboard from Intel’s Extreme or Media series, you probably have CIR headers (some other manufactures have them as well, but it’s rather hit or miss). CIR is an acronym for Consumer InfraRed, is a standard of sorts that allows us to do fun things like turn on our HTPC with a standard IR remote. Best of all (sort of), it doesn’t require a USB adapter.
Over the last week or so, my Windows 7 desktop has intermittently had problems connecting to atomtux. While accessing atomtux via Firefox worked, the Windows file sharing component refused to connect. Occasionally, performing a system restore would fix the issue. However, sometimes it did not help. After a little searching, it looks like the problem was that atomtux’s clock was ahead of my desktop’s (by about 10 minutes). After getting my desktop’s clock back on track (it was falling behind as atomtux synchronizes daily) it once again could access network shares from atomtux.
The moral of the story, if Windows won’t connect to a network share, check your clocks.
-John Havlik
[end of transmission, stay tuned]
Colors are important, having the correct one can make or break a design. That is why professionals and even some enthusiasts spend copious amounts of money (well maybe not quite that much) on devices to ensure that when a color is picked, it looks the same on print and on the screen. Even with these devices, there are many pitfalls on the computer side. Case in point: what looks like a rich crimson in improperly color managed FireFox, The Gimp, and Windows Paint is actually a rusty maroon in color managed Windows Explorer, and FireFox (when set to manage CSS colors in conjunction with profiled images). While this is better than in Windows XP, it is still annoying. When Microsoft redid the graphics driver framework for Vista, they should have forced color correction onto the graphics drivers. That way, all applications would use the same color translation LUT and individual applications would not have to be aware of color profiles. Maybe they could do this for Windows 8 (then one could be in one of those “Windows 8 feature was my idea” commercials).
-John Havlik
[end of transmission, stay tuned]
Since Windows XP, Microsoft has provided a generic driver for the Logitech WingMan RumblePad. This eliminated the need to install Logitech’s software to use the gamepad. Generally, one looks favorably upon such things. However, this driver has always lacked support for force feedback. While the WingMan may be a DirectInput force feedback device in a world moving towards the XInput force feedback model, many games still use DirectInput force feedback.
While Logitech does not provide a standalone driver for the WingMan, it does include a DirectInput force feedback driver for the WingMan in its Logitech Gaming Software. To download LGS, go to Logitech’s website and click support. In the search form enter “G-UA4” (the model number for the closest device to the WingMan RumblePad). Under the downloads tab, select Windows Vista as your OS, then select Logitech Gaming Software from the download dropdown. Install Logitech Gaming Software and your WingMan should now have working force feedback.
-John Havlik
[end of transmission, stay tuned]